Category Archives: family

In less than a week I am headed back to Casa Bernabè in Guatemala. The following video is something my daughter put together from our family visit in July. The beauty of Antigua, the city of Guatemala, and of course the kiddos at Casa Bernabè…it may leave your head spinning a bit with its speed but she covered a lot of ground and our cumulative days.

As I prepare to head back we are looking at the projects we would like to accomplish while we are there.

One of the things that was most amazing to me when we were there in January was the opportunity to bless the house parentsand check some much needed items off of their wish list (you can read about it here.)

We would love to be able to do the same this time. As you can imagine living in a house with 10-15 children will cause things to wear out quickly.

These house parents are all amazing individuals who are serving on the front lines everyday, standing in the gap for the children God has placed in their homes, praying for them, guiding them, loving them as their own.

Would you consider partnering with us on our quest to bless those living at Casa Bernabè? Tax-deductible donations made before 10/24 will be doubled through Love Runners. Learn more or donate here.

Thank you for being part of the Run and Be Still community! Hope you enjoyed the “quick” look into our July trip!

Here I sit, again, suspended above the earth in this in between place. In between families. In between realities and cultures. This frozen place in time where I have to leave one to be with the other. This is an impossible place to live.

As I gaze out my window I realize the clouds look like my thoughts feel, some banks looming large and other, wispy, fly away pieces. If I try to grasp any one of them they simply slip right through my fingers. Disconnected…disjointed…I can’t quite put any of it together.

I heard the seven most beautiful words earlier this week. “Today was our last day of school.” This was the very first English sentence that He has ever spoken to me. (I am so proud of him. Learning English is so hard!) This began a quiet conversation that allowed me to ask him things – what he likes- what he wants – and he was able to answer me without the need for anyone translating. Together we planned an end of school ice cream party for his house. A celebration of a whole lot of things. Big picture…I cannot even begin to convey how precious these words were and the effect that they had on my heart.

But I am terrified that this is where I am going to be stuck, in between. Hope is getting thin as my heart fills fuller and fuller, with a love I didn’t even know was possible, until I feel like it will burst or break. I try to see beyond our circumstances, beyond the bureaucracy, but the reality is hard. The reality terrifies me and so faith and fear do battle within me.

I don’t want to have to choose any more. I don’t. I want my entire family around my breakfast table on Saturday mornings. I want us all tucked in under one roof. I want Christmases, and birthdays, and boring old Tuesday afternoons. I want to share the life experience of every picture we went through on my phone after our ice cream party.

I don’t want to have to look into a set of eyes and say I love you and I will be back soon. I don’t want any more goodbyes on either end of the flight.

This is what life looks like right now and it’s taking its toll. I don’t know how long I can keep doing this and yet I don’t see any other way and I need to be both places.

Please continue to pray for God to move quickly. Your prayers are carrying us through. The tiniest spark of activity continues while the clock is ticking ever more loudly. I dream of the day that he is sitting next to me watching the landscape pass by below us, heading home.

Two weeks ago or so I watched an almost 15 year old blow out candles on his cake. It was supposed to be a celebration but instead it carried the weight of finality with it. A last “adoptable” birthday, a marker of time passing, a milestone for sure, but not one for celebration. I sadly didn’t realize this until the candles were lit. And while we smiled and sang, reality washed over my heart, and I came to see how one so young can fail to be strong on days like today.
What did you so seriously and intently wish? Someday I will ask you.

Today I carry in my heart two pictures, the beautiful smile that most of the time so readily appears and the boy whom hope has left behind.
I struggle with whether to even share this much as I want to tuck our story away, protect it as ours, hide it from the harsh judgment of the bright light of day, but in it there is a reality that we all must face. Within it is a call to love that will break our hearts.

“So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.” Deut 31:6

Last night we received word that we have been granted an audience and an ear in front of key decision makers within two different governments beginning on Monday. As the weekend closes in around us please be praying that hearts thousands of miles away will be aligned with God’s will, that He will go before us and move this mountain, and that He will bring this sweet boy home as our son. I am awestruck by what God has done thus far, to be standing at this place. Adoption has been closed between our countries for 10 years. We stand in a position to possibly make history and it’s humbling to be playing even the tiniest part in this enormous story by just making ourselves available. Please, please will you be part of it too? Can we storm the gates of heaven with prayers over the next four days, prayers that God will do the impossible and officially and legally make us his family? He has already transformed our hearts to recognize it. We need the courts recognize it as well.

“Are you going to be ok if this doesn’t happen?” my husband asked me last night.

“I guess I’ll have to be.”

“That’s not really an answer,” he said.

This was never my idea in the first place so if God has turned my heart from fear of opening our home to the terror of a homecoming never realized I have to trust that He will heal my heart from that prayer left unanswered as well. This is not about me at all any more if in fact it ever was. This is about a boy who is hurting. This is about a boy for whom God must have a mighty plan. I am finding that the weeping hot mess of a woman from February and March has been fortified, is filled with passion, fiercely strong and ready to fight.

Wouldn’t this make a magnificent, holy, 15th birthday present from his Father. The knowledge that he is no longer alone in this world. The Day, this Tuesday, is circled on the calendar. I know He’s able. I know He can. Will you join us in praying that He will? Our son needs brought home.

To be continued…again

“The Lord himself will fight for you. Just stay calm.””

Exodus 14:14 NLT

“Rather, cling tightly to the Lord your God as you have done until now.”

Joshua 23:8 NLT

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.”

Proverbs 3:5-6 NLT

“I am the Lord, the God of all the peoples of the world. Is anything too hard for me?”

Jeremiah 32:27 NLT

“Then he said to me, “This is what the Lord says to Zerubbabel: It is not by force nor by strength, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. Nothing, not even a mighty mountain, will stand in Zerubbabel’s way; it will become a level plain before him!”

Zechariah 4:6 NLT

“Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.”

Ephesians 3:20 NLT

““But forget all that— it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.”

Ok. Seriously. Enough is enough. I am crying Uncle. I am done. Exhausted. Disjointed as it may be here goes…

My plans for this week: Prepare for the Do Good Marketplace event that was supposed to be today.

My reality: doctors appointments, multiple rounds/days of tests capped off by another trip to the hospital. The dehydration from last week had come back to bite us.

First thing this morning, after staying up deep into the night getting everything ready for The Studio sale which was not to be we got a call from Ty’s doctor. He asked that we take Ty to the ER ASAP as the test results from yesterday were marginally worse with declining kidney function and off the chart protein numbers indicating muscle breakdown. He needed to be seen and soon! The doctor prepared us for the reality that he would probably be admitted. Long story short, by the grace of God Ty is home this afternoon without any restrictions. I can’t even tell you the swing of emotion that has taken place in the span of 12 hours.

This has been a week of halting stops and starts, highs and lows. (In the midst of all of this today I got notification that Love Runners 501(c)(3) was approved. We are officially an operating non-profit!) I was attacked this week at one of my most vulnerable spots, my kids, and I am feeling the after effects of that strain this afternoon like a bad hangover.

Yet there is so much to celebrate and be thankful for this evening. The celebrations will have to wait until I am a little more energetic though. (As will the cleaning of the extreme mess I made of our family room last night. It looks like the Do Good goods exploded all over it-which they kind of did.)

I feel like every obstacle has taken a piece of me this week. And the trusting in waiting is so hard when you want answers and action. Watchman Lee nailed this for what it is.

“Satan has, in fact, a plan against the saints of the Most High, which is to wear them out. What is meant by this phrase, “wear out?” It has in it the idea of reducing a little this minute, then reducing a little further the next minute. Reduce a little today, reduce a little tomorrow. Thus the wearing out is almost imperceptible; nevertheless, it is a reducing. The wearing down is scarcely an activity of which one is conscious, yet the end result is that there is nothing left. He will take away your prayer life little by little and cause you to trust God less and less and yourself more and more, a little at a time. He will make you feel somewhat cleverer than before. Step by step, you are misled to rely more on your own gift, and step by step, your heart is enticed away from The Lord. Now, were Satan to strike the children of a God with great force at one time, they would know exactly how to resist the enemy since they would immediately recognize his work. He uses the method of gradualism to wear down the people of God.”
Today I am going to allow myself the day off (maybe even take a nap, gasp!) and allow God to begin fortifying the areas that Satan has been wearing thin.

A door downstairs flew open, jarring me from my peaceful sleep. “Oh NO! What time is it?!” Fumbling for my phone to check the time I see that we had already overslept an hour. I was tumbling out of bed, down the stairs, asking “What do you need?” while gathering socks, Gatorade, and miscellaneous lunch items. This poor grown child looked at me with terrified, sleep filled eyes and said “This has to be a nightmare!”

Football two-a-days. This is a taboo phrase in our house. Not to be spoken aloud, basically like a four-letter word times four (so you know it’s really, really bad!) If you have had any part in them ever, the memory will stay with you eternally. So, when the alarm didn’t go off at 4:55 for the first time or 5:05 for the second time, we slept until the 10th phone call woke my blissfully unaware son at 6:00. Thus inducing the Fear Of Coach panic that flooded each of us. He was out the door in record time and I collapsed into a chair after and remember these words from two years ago during the same season of life …

We had spent the day at the ballpark watching a double header and our friends’ son in his Major League pitching debut. However, with all of the poster-making, jumbo-tron dancing, hot dog eating excitement of the afternoon it wasn’t until we were on our way home (at 10:30 pm) that I realized I still had two pair of football pants that needed to be washed (spray the Shout, scrub the stains, wash, rinse, repeat if necessary) and more importantly dry by the wee hours of the morning. Fun has a price. So, while I waited on the washing machine to do it’s thing, I thought, “You should pack Ty’s lunch. You will thank yourself in the morning when all you have to do is roll out of bed, grab a coffee, and head out the door.” I also searched out socks (why does this always seem to be the one missing item?) and had his football bag otherwise packed and ready to go because I knew neither of us would be functional this morning. And I was right. And I did thank myself. On my drive back home from the football field as the coffee began to work and my brain began to wake up I had a thought. I remembered something I had heard a very long time ago and thought it was a great reminder for all of us. I was as true then as it is now!

You have to live ready.

Tomorrow may be a good day or tomorrow may be a nightmare. Will you be ready? Is your faith something you are building and strengthening everyday? Is your relationship with Jesus something you are nurturing? Or, are these just things that get dusted off, possibly on Sunday, and otherwise left alone only to be unpacked In Case Of Emergency. Are you waiting for “tomorrow” to explore this Jesus-thing a little bit deeper? If this is where you find yourself, please, wake up!

When the alarm goes off (hopefully when it is supposed to) at 5am after too few hours of sleep, is your bag packed? Do you have clean matching socks and a lunch or are you scrambling to pull it together? We have to live ready because we don’t know when the crisis alarm is going to go off. We don’t get a notification in the mail that says, next month you will be diagnosed with a life-altering disease, please plan accordingly. We don’t receive a call that says, please make sure you have appropriate clothing you will be attending a funeral next week. (Maybe yours? I am sorry. That is harsh but it is also reality.) Ready or not, here it comes, with no warning.

We have to live ready! We need to use and strengthen our “faith muscles” every day because if we wait until crisis strikes they will be sluggish and sleepy when we need them most. We will have to dust our faith off and hope that we remember how to work it. It is so very easy to let our faith and relationship with Jesus rest in hibernation, only to be awakened in crisis.

This is a slippery slope. I know. I have been there. I grew up in a solid Christian home, was involved in church. We were bringing our children up to love and fear the Lord. I thought I got it. Then God let me really have it! Oh, foolish proud heart. I have realized that I had nothing without Him. I am nothing without Him.

The problem with crisis is that we don’t know when the alarm is going to go off. When crisis strikes, your brain tends to go into default mode. So what is your default? You want live ready? Nurture your relationship with God. If you don’t have one, start one! If you don’t know how, ask me, I would love to help you figure this out. Dig into His Word for nourishment, spend time in prayer, communicating with our Father. Listen for His voice instead of just talking at Him. I don’t have all the answers. There is not an Easy 5 Step Plan For Readiness but we can stumble and bumble through this together. There are some things you will never be ready for but with faith you can survive them with hope for a better day ahead. The point is, don’t wait.

I can remember playing Parcheesi with my son and mom, 8 years ago at least. In the spirit of competition there was a little smack-talk going on and my son looked at my mom and told her, “Pack your bags your going home!” This my friends, is great advice, pack your bags. Live ready. You’ll thank yourself in the morning.

Living passionately as a survivor, embracing the chaos of the everyday and finding God right in the midst of it all.

Love Runners & The Do Good Studio

Love Runners and The do Good Studio are a Run and Be Still offshoot. Inspired to do something more, I formed this collaboration dedicated to meeting the needs of those living in the margins, both locally and internationally.

It all began with this pair of worn shoes and these simple words, "Take me where love is needed." At it's core our purpose is simple...Take us where love is needed and let us help in meeting those needs tangibly, physically, and spiritually.

Do Good Studio is a 100% not-for-profit store that exists to fund different Love Runner sponsored causes dedicated meeting needs of those who cannot help themselves.

We are able to do this by through the sale of fair-trade, up-cycled and unique Do Good finds and there are some really cool things in The Studio!

Learn more at www.DoGoodStudio.org

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Cease Striving…Be still…Know God (Ps 46:10) Sounds peaceful, right? Peace-filled is more accurate. "Still" has little to do with activity and everything to do with state of mind. Welcome to my crazy life!